Site Help & Accessibility

Helping you to get the most from our website and the internet

The Carewise website has been developed with the aim that it is usable and accessible for all visitors to the site. There are various types of physical disabilities that impact user interaction on the web. Vision loss, hearing loss, limited manual dexterity, and cognitive disabilities are examples, with each having different means by which to access electronic information effectively. Our goal is to provide a good web experience for all visitors.

Below you will find a list of some of the technology solutions we have integrated to make this website easy to navigate, fast-loading and accessible. To further improve the ease of use and readability of this site, such as increasing the font size, please review the section below on how to customize your browser.

The Navigation
The main navigation, located just below the title banner (Carewise logo area), uses lists. Lists make it easier for screen readers to literally read down the list without having to sort through unnecessary code. Lists also allow the users to use the tab key to move from link to link.

Images With Alternative TextPhotographs and other relevant images on the site are accompanied by alternative text (the ALT tag.) Alt tags provide a written description of the image, which is accessible to screen readers, and it is visible when the mouse is placed over the image. This is also useful for people who have images turned off on their browser, in which case a description will display where the image used to be.

Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used for content layout and graphical elements (color, font styles, custom titles and subtitles, etc.) Using CSS for styling keeps our HTML clean, streamlined, easier to maintain, and it downloads faster. Style sheets can be replaced by the user’s own styles.To turn CSS off, and access the content without any formatting, download and install the Firefox Web Developer toolbar or the Internet Explorer Developer toolbar. With these toolbars turning CSS on and off is just a click away, plus they offer many other helpful tools. If you use a different browser, do an Internet search for accessibility for your particular browser.

Accessible Via Mouse or Keyboard
You can use the mouse or keyboard to navigate through our information. The tab key will move the cursor from link to link.

No Sound, No Images, No ProblemContent is accessible without sound, colour, scripts or graphics.

Customize Your Browser to Fit Your Needs

Change font size

In most browsers (example: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) you could change the font size by following the steps below:

Open your browser

Click View button from top menu bar

Click Text Size(in Opera click ‘Zoom’)

Select your option

If your browser uses a different naming convention and you do not see this path, please check the Help menu on your browser. The Help menu is usually the last option on the top menu bar, and it can often be accessed by pressing the keys “Alt” + “H”.

In addition, newer browser versions have a magnifying tool that lets you zoom into a page and display all elements at 150 percent, 200 percent, etc. Look for the magnifying tool with a “+” character. This icon is typically located at the bottom of your browser, on the right, or at the top, below the standard menu tools, on the right. Furthermore, the keyboard shortcut to access this tool is: “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “+” to zoom in, and “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “-” to zoom out.

Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts: This is a list of the most common keyboard shortcuts in Firefox, and the equivalents in Internet Explorer and Opera (from Firefox website).

Mouse shortcuts: This is a list of the most common mouse shortcuts in Firefox, and the equivalents in Internet Explorer and Opera. The shortcuts are for Windows, but most of the Firefox shortcuts should work in Linux, too (from FireFox website).

Add-ons

Firefox accessibility extension (browser toolbar): The Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Extension makes it easier for people with a disability to view and navigate web content. Developers can use the toolbar to check their structural markup to make sure it matches the page content.

Internet Explorer accessibility options (from Microsoft.com) – Internet Explorer offers many accessibility options to help increase readability and to work better with assistive technology. The IE link above offers answers to some common questions about accessibility options in Internet Explorer:

Can I use the keyboard to surf the web?

Can I customize the font size, formatting, and screen colors?

How can I improve the way IE works with my screen reader or voice recognition software?

How can I improve legibility when printing webpages?

Change CSS

Below is the step by step on how to change the style sheet file in Internet Explorer. For other browsers please check the Help menu in your browser.

Click Tools from the top menu bar

Select Internet Options

Select the General tab (first tab)

Click on Accessibility button (bottom section, Appearance)

Click on checkboxes to ignore all colors and font styles and sizes and/or

Click on checkbox: “Format documents using my style sheet”

Browse to your personal style sheet and

Click OK

We are constantly updating our content and striving to make it accessible. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us.

Difficulty Accessing Material

If you have difficulty accessing any material on this site because of a disability, please contact us we will work with you to make the information available.